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I don’t see much comparison between Kevin Richardson and Timothy Tredwell. Anyone who has seen Grizzly Man can come to a decent conclusion of Timothy Tredwell’s motivations underlined with some questionable psychological desires and flat out bitterness to the National Park Service. What’s more is that these lions and hyenas are not 100% wild, they live in a wild environment, but have been around humans throughout the duration of their lives (not to say that why would be as comfortable with just an human as much as they are with Kevin). Nothing is black and white about this type of conservation work, Kevin’s videos are inspirational, and make the general public feel more connected to African wildlife. However, there is also the danger of habituating these animals to human presence as not all humans are there to care for them and may have quite the opposite intention. Overall, I would consider this kind of work pretty noble, past attempts to motivate people to conservation action have clearly not been sustainable, I think it’s time to get creative. It’s something you have to take with a grain of salt, a lot of us grow up with what I like to call “Lion King syndrome”, we think everything is cute and cuddly, we see elephants in the circus obeying their handlers, we see Orca whales swimming with their trainers. The cautious nature of working with any wild animal should be included as part of educational component to videos like this one.

Everywhere there is a cause for an animal going to extinct; to restore them, to preserve them, to rescue them, yet we forget that the dwindling animal life everywhere (especially predatory animals) is due to the growth of the human population. We aren’t saving anything, don’t fool yourselves. Only reserves can preserve animal species, but in the end that is just overreaching our dominance and domesticating another species. A trivial pursuit a day, I guess. Good luck lion whisperer, because what would really save these animals is if we died.